Currently Prime is not playable at all (Redacted works for which reason ever). I mean right now @15:46 CEST. Not sure if it is because of field tests or if there is something else... but if the situation at the anomaly in October will be the same then Niantic you may expect to receive the claims for financial loss. Travel costs, hotel and so on.
This whole mess leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like many other people.
I've gone to nearly every anomaly since I started playing. I've bought supporter packs at most of them, for the loadout cards. I've got a deck box with all the character cards I've acquired, but I've never put a single character on my profile -- my profile represents things I've *done*, not things I've *bought*. Now with Umbra we get an anomaly series where you need to pay for the right to have your profile reflect what you've *done*. That feels counter to the spirit of the badges.
There are so many ways to monetize these events and still encourage the community participation that is the heart of Ingress agent retention. (On my BoardGameGeek.com profile I've got a "patron" badge with a color bar for every year I've donated at least $10. Nice, simple, unobtrusive, and a huge source of funding for the corporation. And 100% opt-in, doesn't gate anything else. How about a Patron badge with a tick for every year I've paid an Ingress membership and anomaly I've donated money to, with ticks grandfathered for free back to Founders?)
Think about the new agent attending their first anomaly. They attend, they have fun, they get psyched up, and then they learn *after* the anomaly that because they didn't pay, they don't get to show off their participation. Is that person likely to stick around? You've said that there are a lot of new Ingress players -- in my area most of them get to level 10 to submit Pokestops and quit. You need a hook, and for a lot of players that first anomaly badge is the hook. Don't **** it.
(You also haven't made any provisions for teenagers to attend anomalies, with or without their parents. Why not? )
But for starters, if I am paying for the event, I expect to get value for my money. Niantic staff doing the groundwork. Niantic staff taking the time to verify a safe and fun playbox. Niantic staff providing event security/medical emergency coverage, hydration stations in hot summer venues, government permits for use of public spaces. Police that know why mobs of people in blue and green are on the streets.
Oh, one more thing -- I signed up for Intel Ops, even though the price has tripled. At that price point I would expect a professional quality event. Something you have failed to provide the last three times I've participated. (You came so close in Chicago, but the event was pretty much wrecked by the fallout from not getting permits for Lincoln Park and needing to rewrite the scenario at the last minute.) And again, much volunteer work goes into these things, people with local knowledge delineating safe fun places to play, so important for an evening event.
As Redacted rides off into the sunset, communities are struggling hard to retain players. Your clumsy monetization strategies are only making this harder. Please listen so that Ingress remains viable. You've put a lot of money into developing Ingress Prime, please keep the game alive long enough to make that pay off.
For all those commenting about how it's Ingress players who create the POI database -- while that was true in the past, Pokestop creation is rolling out to more and more countries.
Of course, PoGo players can't see all the POI that aren't Pokestops, so I imagine they are submitting a lot of dupes, but in the long run they will be doing the bulk of the additions.
Only, currently, ingress players are able to access opr - and even then, many ingress players are unable (prime only players mainly from what I gather, so they didn't have accounts able to access redacted).
It's quite possible Nia will open opr, or something similar, to pogo players etc, and make ingress players redundant in this aspect.
As it stands though, it's only in ingress agents and Nia that review portals.
I've been getting more into Ingress over the past year, finding more places to go and explore and have even started submitting stops. I like the Niantic games because they are free-to-play and balanced well enough to be not pay-to-win.
And so I was looking into attending events (anomalies, first Saturdays etc...) and I have found groups to meet up with even if that's 100km away. It was looking like a fun and sociable event in a semi-organised ad hoc fashion.
However, fi you're asking me to pay, it only seems worthwhile iif they are high quality events with proper security, facilities and whatnot, as outlined by the OP. However, if you're expecting volunteers to coordinate things and freeload off the local infrastructure, then I guess I'm out.
"170 Agents at the last Field Test event in Lince Peru, to help you in selfless testing the Ingress Prime app"
Excellent words, very good exposed the feeling of the players, like in Peru the organizer of the event for profit, has the obligation to assume all the duties for the safety of the participants and the corresponding taxation for the fiscal box. Dear Niantic, I have 6 years in the game, please, there are other ways to make money with Ingress, do not destroy the spirit of the game, which served as the basis for your remunerative Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Remember that not only everyone did it, we were your "agents" of Ingress who have "collaborated" in a selfless way to feed your network geospatial network of portals. Consider it please. Thank you.
I already got really upset when Nia changed the Missionday Badge to that ugly Pokémon-style-mainsplaining-thing after I have invested a serious amount of money and time to travel around in order to obtain the nice looking Missionday Logo Badge. After this excellent letter that explains the situation absolutely perfect, I think I'll just stop playing Ingress. The response from Niantic to this excellent letter is indeed another slap in the face and it would have been better to not respond at all.
As an Agent I reached L16, did a recurse and helped organizing various Missiondays, Anomalies and First Saturdays. As most agents, I created portals and missions and helped founding Niantics global database. I loved Ingress and played it daily for several years.
I'm spending every now and then a considerable amount to play Pokémon Go (buying Raid Passes, Incubators or upgrading my storage) and I also bought the key capsules in Ingress right away. I always bought rare or very rare packs at every anomaly, I would spend more money on increasing my storage limit or have more key capsules for my holiday trips. As I'm a developer, too, I know how important that is. I'm so ready to spend. However, I'm not willing to spend anything on an Anomaly Badge that is almost 100% organized by the community and happening in public places.
Claudija, thank you for posting this extremely well written rebuttal to Niantic's latest stupidity. As local agents at one of the anomaly sites, my husband and I are reconsidering our participation.
What Niantic has done here is known as a bait and switch, which is illegal under California and United States law.
This is truely right. They are turning the game into pay to win, people who have money to spend on it will participate and get their points and work counted during the day of the anomaly and people who can't are helpless. Loved the format and the way you have put all the scenarios and placed your point.
If they plan to monetise the game like this then I guess we can also demand monetary rewards. They should pay wages to all founders, POCs for getting valuable data based on which they were able to build what it is today. I guess this makes a point for my exit if they do not come to their senses. Invested enough valuable time already.
Oh please. Like they weren't making money of it before. It's still a free game, expecting compensation for creating the game you love is kind of silly isn't it? Do you really expect them to pay out cash to people that helped the game? You seriously can't be that narrow minded.
I agree with everything stated in the original post. Just adding a thought here...
If you are making anomalies ticketed, please don't make PoCs do all the hard ground work like organizing clearances with local governments, law enforcement etc while you guys just make a pay day out of it since those clearances often require money to be paid which varies depending on the country and city. It's not a fair way to treat anyone who works so hard for your game just out of love for it. Please compensate them for their hard work by giving them a flat percentage of your ticket earnings of the anomaly after the event to acknowledge their hard work without which an anomaly cannot happen because Ingress events are not about scanner apps and servers. It will probably be more expensive for you guys to do the ground work yourself.
i will try to answer some of the questions i saw during the dicussion with some Postings.
The first question i saw was regarding the point of view of the other vanguards or an open letter from other vanguards.
You can find in the discussion here some statements from other vanguards. Also the ENL vanguards helped me putting the letter together and prove reading it for typos and other things.
Oh it seems like i only can quote three Postings 🙈 other vanguards i saw Postings are: VanJeffrey and Vorticity. I bet i forgot someone to list here, sorry if i missed your Posting.
Another Questions was if i can translate the letter into german:
A fellow agent from Berlin throw the letter into a translator and this is the result 😅Brief in deutsch its not perfect and when i find the time i will try to translate it
I will try to answer other questions later. but i want also encourage you all to use this community to give Feedback to niantic.
Thank you all for your support and messages in the past days - we are a great community!
Comments
Currently Prime is not playable at all (Redacted works for which reason ever). I mean right now @15:46 CEST. Not sure if it is because of field tests or if there is something else... but if the situation at the anomaly in October will be the same then Niantic you may expect to receive the claims for financial loss. Travel costs, hotel and so on.
Thank you @Claudija . This sums up everything, sadly they have fallen on deaf ears. 😭
This whole mess leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like many other people.
I've gone to nearly every anomaly since I started playing. I've bought supporter packs at most of them, for the loadout cards. I've got a deck box with all the character cards I've acquired, but I've never put a single character on my profile -- my profile represents things I've *done*, not things I've *bought*. Now with Umbra we get an anomaly series where you need to pay for the right to have your profile reflect what you've *done*. That feels counter to the spirit of the badges.
There are so many ways to monetize these events and still encourage the community participation that is the heart of Ingress agent retention. (On my BoardGameGeek.com profile I've got a "patron" badge with a color bar for every year I've donated at least $10. Nice, simple, unobtrusive, and a huge source of funding for the corporation. And 100% opt-in, doesn't gate anything else. How about a Patron badge with a tick for every year I've paid an Ingress membership and anomaly I've donated money to, with ticks grandfathered for free back to Founders?)
Think about the new agent attending their first anomaly. They attend, they have fun, they get psyched up, and then they learn *after* the anomaly that because they didn't pay, they don't get to show off their participation. Is that person likely to stick around? You've said that there are a lot of new Ingress players -- in my area most of them get to level 10 to submit Pokestops and quit. You need a hook, and for a lot of players that first anomaly badge is the hook. Don't **** it.
(You also haven't made any provisions for teenagers to attend anomalies, with or without their parents. Why not? )
But for starters, if I am paying for the event, I expect to get value for my money. Niantic staff doing the groundwork. Niantic staff taking the time to verify a safe and fun playbox. Niantic staff providing event security/medical emergency coverage, hydration stations in hot summer venues, government permits for use of public spaces. Police that know why mobs of people in blue and green are on the streets.
Oh, one more thing -- I signed up for Intel Ops, even though the price has tripled. At that price point I would expect a professional quality event. Something you have failed to provide the last three times I've participated. (You came so close in Chicago, but the event was pretty much wrecked by the fallout from not getting permits for Lincoln Park and needing to rewrite the scenario at the last minute.) And again, much volunteer work goes into these things, people with local knowledge delineating safe fun places to play, so important for an evening event.
As Redacted rides off into the sunset, communities are struggling hard to retain players. Your clumsy monetization strategies are only making this harder. Please listen so that Ingress remains viable. You've put a lot of money into developing Ingress Prime, please keep the game alive long enough to make that pay off.
For all those commenting about how it's Ingress players who create the POI database -- while that was true in the past, Pokestop creation is rolling out to more and more countries.
Of course, PoGo players can't see all the POI that aren't Pokestops, so I imagine they are submitting a lot of dupes, but in the long run they will be doing the bulk of the additions.
Sure, and once they may OPR, they will produce loads of fake portals/stops. ;)
Does PoGo also have OPR to evaluate these submissions? It's a two-step system after all.
Not having access to Pogo submissions I'm curious: do these go into OPR? I have two concerns.
1) You'll get tons of bad submissions; I can imagine kids submitting every bedroom, bus stop, and school in existence.
2) Rhetorical question: who does OPR if not Ingress players? Do the Pogo players who send in submissions actually take time to review?
Pogo submissions go into opr the same as ingress.
Only, currently, ingress players are able to access opr - and even then, many ingress players are unable (prime only players mainly from what I gather, so they didn't have accounts able to access redacted).
It's quite possible Nia will open opr, or something similar, to pogo players etc, and make ingress players redundant in this aspect.
As it stands though, it's only in ingress agents and Nia that review portals.
I've been getting more into Ingress over the past year, finding more places to go and explore and have even started submitting stops. I like the Niantic games because they are free-to-play and balanced well enough to be not pay-to-win.
And so I was looking into attending events (anomalies, first Saturdays etc...) and I have found groups to meet up with even if that's 100km away. It was looking like a fun and sociable event in a semi-organised ad hoc fashion.
However, fi you're asking me to pay, it only seems worthwhile iif they are high quality events with proper security, facilities and whatnot, as outlined by the OP. However, if you're expecting volunteers to coordinate things and freeload off the local infrastructure, then I guess I'm out.
Thank you @Claudija
True, why spend money on a venue that could potentially cost more to a loss and make little use if it. (for my area)
"170 Agents at the last Field Test event in Lince Peru, to help you in selfless testing the Ingress Prime app"
Excellent words, very good exposed the feeling of the players, like in Peru the organizer of the event for profit, has the obligation to assume all the duties for the safety of the participants and the corresponding taxation for the fiscal box. Dear Niantic, I have 6 years in the game, please, there are other ways to make money with Ingress, do not destroy the spirit of the game, which served as the basis for your remunerative Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Remember that not only everyone did it, we were your "agents" of Ingress who have "collaborated" in a selfless way to feed your network geospatial network of portals. Consider it please. Thank you.
Attempt agent L0RDXJ3R4L.
I already got really upset when Nia changed the Missionday Badge to that ugly Pokémon-style-mainsplaining-thing after I have invested a serious amount of money and time to travel around in order to obtain the nice looking Missionday Logo Badge. After this excellent letter that explains the situation absolutely perfect, I think I'll just stop playing Ingress. The response from Niantic to this excellent letter is indeed another slap in the face and it would have been better to not respond at all.
As an Agent I reached L16, did a recurse and helped organizing various Missiondays, Anomalies and First Saturdays. As most agents, I created portals and missions and helped founding Niantics global database. I loved Ingress and played it daily for several years.
I'm spending every now and then a considerable amount to play Pokémon Go (buying Raid Passes, Incubators or upgrading my storage) and I also bought the key capsules in Ingress right away. I always bought rare or very rare packs at every anomaly, I would spend more money on increasing my storage limit or have more key capsules for my holiday trips. As I'm a developer, too, I know how important that is. I'm so ready to spend. However, I'm not willing to spend anything on an Anomaly Badge that is almost 100% organized by the community and happening in public places.
Thank you for writing so clearly what many were thinking.
It looks like Niantic have changed things somewhat, though the cynics may say that they intended to back off a bit all a long.
However I do have a couple of questions / remarks about the role of the Vanguards.
I thought the purpose of the Vanguards was to "act as a sounding board" for new ideas. How did this ever get past you?
And I think it's a shame we didn't have a common letter from all, or at least most, Vanguards.
Claudija, thank you for posting this extremely well written rebuttal to Niantic's latest stupidity. As local agents at one of the anomaly sites, my husband and I are reconsidering our participation.
What Niantic has done here is known as a bait and switch, which is illegal under California and United States law.
i agree completely
Well Said @Claudija
Totally Agree...
This is truely right. They are turning the game into pay to win, people who have money to spend on it will participate and get their points and work counted during the day of the anomaly and people who can't are helpless. Loved the format and the way you have put all the scenarios and placed your point.
If they plan to monetise the game like this then I guess we can also demand monetary rewards. They should pay wages to all founders, POCs for getting valuable data based on which they were able to build what it is today. I guess this makes a point for my exit if they do not come to their senses. Invested enough valuable time already.
Yeah, but there are already free tickets. And people that bought a ticket get 2 paid tickets to give away.
Oh please. Like they weren't making money of it before. It's still a free game, expecting compensation for creating the game you love is kind of silly isn't it? Do you really expect them to pay out cash to people that helped the game? You seriously can't be that narrow minded.
I agree with everything stated in the original post. Just adding a thought here...
If you are making anomalies ticketed, please don't make PoCs do all the hard ground work like organizing clearances with local governments, law enforcement etc while you guys just make a pay day out of it since those clearances often require money to be paid which varies depending on the country and city. It's not a fair way to treat anyone who works so hard for your game just out of love for it. Please compensate them for their hard work by giving them a flat percentage of your ticket earnings of the anomaly after the event to acknowledge their hard work without which an anomaly cannot happen because Ingress events are not about scanner apps and servers. It will probably be more expensive for you guys to do the ground work yourself.
Hello all,
i will try to answer some of the questions i saw during the dicussion with some Postings.
The first question i saw was regarding the point of view of the other vanguards or an open letter from other vanguards.
You can find in the discussion here some statements from other vanguards. Also the ENL vanguards helped me putting the letter together and prove reading it for typos and other things.
Oh it seems like i only can quote three Postings 🙈 other vanguards i saw Postings are: VanJeffrey and Vorticity. I bet i forgot someone to list here, sorry if i missed your Posting.
Another Questions was if i can translate the letter into german:
A fellow agent from Berlin throw the letter into a translator and this is the result 😅 Brief in deutsch its not perfect and when i find the time i will try to translate it
I will try to answer other questions later. but i want also encourage you all to use this community to give Feedback to niantic.
Thank you all for your support and messages in the past days - we are a great community!
+
It seems it is fallen of ingress.
I wish there was a way to tell which are ingress, and which are pogo.
Thank you @Claudija
Why? so you can automatically 1* the nominations from Pokemon Go?
You can half the time.
Either it's placed on a house, or it's a duplicate.
+1